ABOUT

Created by Netscape in 1995 as an extension of HTML for Netscape Navigator 2.0, JavaScript had as its main function the manipulation of HTML documents and form validation.
Before winning this name so famous nowadays, JavaScript was called Mocha. When it first shipped in beta releases, it was officially called LiveScript and finally, when it was released by Sun Microsystems, was baptized with the name by which it is known today.
Because of the similar names, people confuse JavaScript with Java. Although both have the lexical structure of programming, they are not the same language.
Different from C, C# and Java, JavaScript is an interpreted language. It means that it needs an "interpreter". In case of JavaScript, the interpreter is the browser.

CURRENT VERSION

The JavaScript standard is ECMAScript. As of 2012, all modern browsers fully support ECMAScript 5.1. Older browsers support at least ECMAScript 3. As of June 2015 the spec for ES6/ES2015 has been approved. Following the new annual release cycle, ES7/ES2016 has been adopted in June 2016. See the ECMAScript 2016 Language Specification at Ecma International.

THE DOM

The Document Object Model (DOM) is an API for HTML and XML documents. It provides a structural representation of the document, enabling you to modify its content and visual presentation by using a scripting language such as JavaScript. See more at Mozilla Developer Network - DOM.

Loose Typing

For many front-end developers, JavaScript was their first taste of a scripting and/or interpretive language. To these developers, the concept and implications of loosely typed variables may be second nature. However, the explosive growth in demand for modern web applications has resulted in a growing number of back-end developers that have had to dip their feet into the pool of client-side technologies. Many of these developers are coming from a background of strongly typed languages, such as C# or Java, and are unfamiliar with both the freedom and the potential pitfalls involved in working with loosely typed variables.

Scoping and Hoisting

Scoping: In JavaScript, functions are our de facto scope delimiters for declaring vars, which means that usual blocks from loops and conditionals (such as if, for, while, switch and try) DON'T delimit scope, unlike most other languages. Therefore, those blocks will share the same scope as the function which contains them. This way, it might be dangerous to declare vars inside blocks as it would seem the var belongs to that block only.

Hoisting: On runtime, all var and function declarations are moved to the beginning of each function (its scope) - this is known as Hoisting. Having said so, it is a good practice to declare all the vars altogether on the first line, in order to avoid false expectations with a var that got declared late but happened to hold a value before - this is a common problem for programmers coming from languages with block scope.

Function Binding

Function binding is most probably the least of your concerns when beginning with JavaScript, but when you realize that you need a solution to the problem of how to keep the context of this within another function, then you might realize that what you actually need is Function.prototype.bind().

Closure Function

Closures are functions that refer to independent (free) variables. In other words, the function defined in the closure 'remembers' the environment in which it was created in.
It is an important concept to understand as it can be useful during development, like emulating private methods. It can also help to learn how to avoid common mistakes, like creating closures in loops.

Strict mode

ECMAScript 5's strict mode is a way to opt in to a restricted variant of JavaScript. Strict mode isn't just a subset: it intentionally has different semantics from normal code. Browsers not supporting strict mode will run strict mode code with different behavior from browsers that do, so don't rely on strict mode without feature-testing for support for the relevant aspects of strict mode. Strict mode code and non-strict mode code can coexist, so scripts can opt into strict mode incrementally.

Immediately-Invoked Function Expression (IIFE)

An immediately-invoked function expression is a pattern which produces a lexical scope using JavaScript's function scoping. Immediately-invoked function expressions can be used to avoid variable hoisting from within blocks, protect against polluting the global environment and simultaneously allow public access to methods while retaining privacy for variables defined within the function.

This pattern has been referred to as a self-executing anonymous function, but @cowboy (Ben Alman) introduced the term IIFE as a more semantically accurate term for the pattern.

One framework.Mobile & desktop. One way to build applications with Angular and reuse your code and abilities to build apps for any deployment target. For web, mobile web, native mobile and native desktop.

Spice is a super minimal (< 3k) and flexible MVC framework for javascript. Spice was built to be easily added to any existent application and play well with other technologies such as jQuery, pjax, turbolinks, node or whatever else you are using.

Riot is an incredibly fast, powerful yet tiny client side (MV*) library for building large scale web applications. Despite the small size all the building blocks are there: a template engine, router, event library and a strict MVP pattern to keep things organized.

CanJS is a JavaScript framework that makes developing complex applications simple and fast. Easy-to-learn, small, and unassuming of your application structure, but with modern features like custom tags and 2-way binding.

Library

Is an MVVM library providing two-way data binding, HTML extended behaviour (through directives) and reactive components. By using native add-ons a developer can also have routing, AJAX, a Flux-like state management, form validation and more. Provides a helpful Chrome extension to inspect components built with Vue.

ImpactJS is one of the more tested-and-true HTML5 game engines with the initial release all the way back at the end of 2010. It is very well maintained and updated, and has a good-sized community backing it. There exists plenty of documentation - even two books on the subject of creating games with the engine.

Cocos2d-html5 is an open-source web 2D game framework, released under MIT License. It is a HTML5 version of Cocos2d-x project. The focus for Cocos2d-html5 development is around making Cocos2d cross platforms between browsers and native application.

LycheeJS is a JavaScript Game library that offers a complete solution for prototyping and deployment of HTML5 Canvas, WebGL or native OpenGL(ES) based games inside the Web Browser or native environments.

Isogenic is an advanced game engine that provides the most advanced networking and realtime multiplayer functionality available in any HTML 5 game engine. The system is based on entity streaming and includes powerful simulation options and client-side entity interpolation from delta updates.